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You would think simply attending Yale University would be enough of an experience to remember, but Rafi Taherian, executive director of Yale Dining in New Haven, Conn., believes creating memorable experiences is at the core of what his department does. It is this passion for delivering excellence in every aspect of the business that has allowed Taherian to build an award-winning dining program almost from scratch.

Since coming to the university to lead its transition from a contracted account to self-op five years ago, Taherian has recruited top talent to his team, refocused the department as a culinary-based program and opened locations in unconventional spaces in a tough economy. Evidence of Taherian’s impact can be seen in student satisfaction scores: During the past four years the department has seen a 25% increase in the number of “extremely satisfied” responses from students. The combination of “extremely satisfied” and “satisfied” responses brings the department to an 85% to 90% satisfaction rating for food and service.

“[Rafi is] always looking to make a memorable experience for every customer,” says Jeanette Norton, deputy director for dining. “He makes sure that whatever he is doing complements the Yale tradition. I would say he is a true visionary. He knows the direction he wants to go and is committed to excellence every step of the way.”

Starting from scratch: Taherian was brought to Yale in 2008 to transition the dining services department back to self-op status after more than 10 years of outsourcing.

“I was starting basically with a blank piece of paper,” Taherian says. “It was a huge opportunity for us to show to the marketplace that the reverse track [from contract to self-op] is also a possibility, and one that can be very successful. I think in the national market, especially with a prestigious program like Yale, this was a major undertaking and one that was very exciting for us.”

Taherian says more important than the actual operational steps made during the transition was the establishment of what Yale Dining was going to be about: creating excellence in hospitality through memorable experiences.

“We wanted to make sure that what happens in our dining halls and locations and what we do with our food and service are reflective of the great standing that Yale has worldwide,” he explains. “We have 12 residential colleges, and at the heart of each one is the dining hall. So the key focus is not just to provide a strong program in terms of quality and sustainable food for customers but creating moments of expression and memorable experiences.”

Such experiences include a guest chef series and house master’s teas, as well as new traditions such as Final Cut, a huge “Iron Chef”-type event, and Reality Bites, which teaches graduating seniors life lessons like grocery store shopping and fine-dining etiquette.

Top talent: Taherian says he knew from the start of his time at Yale that the previous management had not spent much of its resources on the training and development of the staff—something he desperately wanted to change.

“We knew that if we were to going increase the quality of the food and service, we had to start first with our people,” Taherian says. “We provided over 10,000 hours of culinary training to our staff by leveraging industry resources, our certified master chef and any guest chefs that come through. We’ve also leveraged our relationship with The Culinary Institute of America by developing a lot of training programs with them.”

Taherian says this training was integral to the program, especially once the food quality increased so dramatically.

“Our staff need to know what to do with those quality ingredients,” Taherian says. “For example, I just came back from looking in on the end of a three-day training with our cooks. Today, they did a competition against each other. There were four teams and they had to compete with a market basket. It was amazing how the interpretations were different from team to team. I asked a couple of our cooks today, ‘Is this something you can do in your dining room when you go back,’ and they said yes. I said, ‘Great, cause that’s the expectation.’”

Training chefs to know what to do with sustainable products became especially important once an effort was made to increase those purchases. When Taherian arrived on campus the department was purchasing about 19% of its total purchases from sustainable sources. Now that number is at 40%.

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